The Pelagic Freezer Trawler Association (PFA) and the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries have announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at benefiting from their mutual interests in scientific surveys, stock assessment and ecological research of pelagic stocks and their application to sustainable fisheries management.
With this partnership, valuable industry data from pelagic freezer trawlers can be used even more effectively for the continuous improvement of EU fisheries knowledge about pelagic fish stocks. The MoU follows MoU’s previously concluded by the PFA with Wageningen Marine Research (the Netherlands) and CEFAS (UK).
‘The new MoU with Thünen Institute marks a significant further step in the intensive cooperation between the pelagic fishing sector and research institutes,’ said PFA chief science officer Dr. Niels Hintzen.
‘It demonstrates our commitment in building a strong basis for knowledge sharing on pelagic science. But this also applies to the dedication of our fishers to support science. The operational insights and data from pelagic freezer trawlers help to realise even more reliable information on pelagic fishing stocks. This way, fishers play an important role in supporting healthy oceans and a sustainable future for the sector.’
On behalf of the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries, Dr. Gerd Kraus stated that the new collaboration also contributes to the work of their researchers.
‘The pelagic fishing industry has proven to contribute valuable additional data and information for improving stock assessments. In recent years, the PFA has consequently built up sampling schemes and monitoring systems that are able to inform fisheries science on a broad scope with increased spatial coverage, utilising modern technical methodology,’ he said.
‘We are looking forward to this intensified collaboration under the MoU which will certainly help improving data quality for the assessment of pelagic fish stocks and ultimately leading to better fisheries management advice widely accepted by all involved parties.’
As a member of the PFA, German fishing company Doggerbank Seefischerei GmbH is closely involved in the new collaboration. On the company’s behalf Annegret Finke highlighted the importance of cooperation between science and sector:
‘As a responsible fishing company, we believe it is important to contribute to science. Our vessels have already started collecting routine acoustic data and have been participating in the PFA’s self-sampling programme since 2015. This has enabled us to contribute to 600,000 individual length measurements of pelagic fish species on German flagged pelagic freezer trawlers.’
